19S ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VII. 
verting round as far as Cape Egmont ; and the Wes- 
leyans asserted their claim to preach as far as Cape 
Palliser, Port Nicholson was thus within the dis- 
puted district : and no honour redounded to his em- 
ployers when Richard Davis, immediately after dis- 
embarking from the vessel of the Wesleyan mission, 
again avowed himself an orthodox member of the 
Church of England, spread the tracts and the doctrines 
of the Bay of Islands mission, and set to work to pre- 
pare the resident natives for the purchase by Mr. Wil- 
liams of some of their land, and for the erection of a 
temporary church. Thus, from the first, two doctrines 
of religion had been preached to the native inhabitants 
of Port Nicholson. 
The natives repeatedly stated that Mr. Williams 
had, during his visit, told them that the White settlers 
expected by us would drive them to the hills, and that 
they ought to have disposed of their land at the price 
of a pound a foot; advising them to claim money on the 
return of Colonel Wakefield. Their good faith, however, 
was as yet unimpaired ; and the firmness with which 
they had resisted such strong attempts to excite them 
to suspicion and distrust of us, and to the infraction of 
their bargain, gave great hopes of the influence which 
we should be enabled to preserve among them by con- 
tinued kind treatment, and by making the Reserves 
prove how much we had been belied. 
We afterwards heard that Mr. Williams had pro- 
ceeded in our track about Cook's Strait ; always fore- 
stalled by us a few days in our purchases of the land. 
At Kapiti he had expressed much disappointment at 
his inability to catch us. 
On the 31st of January, the Oriental had arrived at 
Port Nicholson, bearing some of the leading settlers. 
